Kiptopeke concrete ships featured on television show

8mm footage taken around 1955 at Kiptopeke Ferry Landing shows the S.S. Pocahontas. Virginia Ferry Corporation took passengers from Cape Charles and Kiptopeke Beach across to Little Creek, Virginia. The Pocahontas was powered by two steam engines.
Video by Don W. Korte Sr., courtesy of John Korte

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Charles and Mary Repman of Dover, Pennsylvania, fish from the pier at Kiptopeke State Park. The park offers fishing, camping and boating along with a stretch of pristine beach.(Photo: Delmarvanow file photo)Buy Photo

Kiptopeke State Park's unusual breakwater made of concrete ships will be featured on a television show.

Discovery's Science Channel will feature the breakwater on Thursday, Jan. 10, at 9 p.m. on the program, "Impossible Engineering."

The ships, each more than 300 feet long, sit offshore from the state park and provide good fishing grounds for visitors, according to Park Manager Forrest Gladden.

A crew came to the park in southern Northampton County to film the ships for the television program, he said.

Gladden said visitors to Kiptopeke are always curious about the structures.

"Every visitor asks what they are. When we tell them they are made out of concrete, they are amazed," he said.

The breakwater makes for a good place to catch flounder in the summer, Gladden said.

The ships are part of the state park. They were placed in the spot in 1948 as a breakwater for the Little Creek-Cape Charles Ferry terminal, which was in use from 1950 to 1964, when the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel opened and ferry service from the Eastern Shore of Virginia to Hampton Roads stopped.

"They were used as supply ships during World War II," Gladden said.

Now the breakwater protects the beach and pier at the state park.

After the war, the ships were obtained from the Department of Defense.

A blog post on the Virginia State Parks website details the ships' history, saying they were ordered by the U.S. Maritime Commission in 1942 during a steel shortage during the war. Concrete was cheap and readily available, according to the post written by Andrew Sporrer.

The contract to build them was awarded to McCloskey and Co. and they were built in Florida.

Two dozen concrete ships were built and used during World War II.

Nine ships make up the breakwater at Kiptopeke — all of them had been used as transport and training vessels in the South Pacific, according to the post.

"We are very fortunate to have that artificial reef out there, because it enhances the park and makes that area of the park even more useful," said Gladden.